Lessons in Love & Devotion: Slipping Up and Down
by drcalvin
Summary: #4 in the series. "The Homebrew Incident We Don't Talk About" a.k.a. the time Johnny and Yosaku discovered what it takes for Zoro to get really, reeeaaally drunk. A story from the two years that these three crazy bounty hunters had adventures together. FINISHED FIC, ongoing series.


Warnings: The entire series contains bad language. It will also have male/male/male sex (but not in this part) and mentions of homophobia.

Timeline: Takes place before One Piece, heavily drawing from the anime filler episode #135, which is a flashback to how Zoro met Johnny and Yosaku.

Every piece of this series is a complete story in itself, though they build on each other. This is the fourth story in the series! (Parts 2 and 3 are put together as chapters in one fic, because 's uploading function annoys me)

Thanks to loveandallthat for beta help. All remaining errors are mine!

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**Lessons in Love and Devotion: Slipping Up and Down**

The thing with Roronoa Zoro, Johnny had come to understand, was that beneath the cool, prideful exterior he hid three things. One, a cool, prideful disdain regarding almost everything people considered neccessities of life (such as a steady home and income, material comforts, and personal reputation). Two, a borderline insane obsession with his life's goal. Three, a massive boulder of angst over some unspecified badness in his past.

The first hidden factor was more or less hiding in plain sight, but still fooled most people. After knowing the guy for four months and having travelled with him roughly half the time [1], neither Johnny nor Yosaku could stop marvelling at how many people treated the young man with funky green hair (and a black headband – remind you of anyone yet?), worn clothes (which always included an ugly, but _unique_, stomach warmer) and, last but not least, _three katana_ as just another vagrant. Because people were shit, this meant laughing at his questions about which island he was on, refusing to extend credit to buy food and comitting further acts of general assholishness towards him.

Usually this phase went on until the local tough guys pissed Zoro off, after which the three of them sometimes had to evacuate the area quickly to avoid attention from the Marines. Luckily, in many cases the local tough guys carried bounties. Then they could hang around for a while, sometimes even get treated to a free meal.

_Three swords_! It wasn't as if he was Joe the Average-Style Swordsman! Did nobody read the paper any more?

Honestly! If Johnny had to watch one more bumpkin insult his hotly admired bro, Zoro wouldn't even have time to get into a pissing contest with the local gangs, because he, Johnny, would get them chased out of town for hitting farmers.

To calm him down a bit, Yosaku had suggested the theory that, actually, people weren't always quite this stupid. It was simply something about being near big bro's awesomeness that turned them into drooling morons. Themselves excluded of course, due to them being almost as awesome swordsmen. While Johnny wasn't quite willing to buy the idea wholesale, he suspected that there might be a kernel of truth in it. He had to accept some explanation or he'd get truly depressed about the state of general smarts in East Blue.

To battle at least part of the problem, they had suggested that Zoro get himself some snazzier clothes. Unfortunately, so far, they'd only convinced him that a pair of proper boots didn't only look better than his old flip-flops, but were also more reliable in a fight. But beyond that? Nope, because as much as they considered themselves friends, there was only so far you could push Zoro before you hit upon his epic I-don't-give-a-damn powers and had to withdraw. While Johnny personally found it a shame that see that attitude applied to his clothes [2], he had to admire how consistently Zoro didn't give a fuck about, well, anything and anybody else.

Some might consider it egoistical and scary, but once you realized that all the fucks Zoro had to give – and they were some seriously hardcore fucks, kinky whips, chains and the whole caboodle and how did this metapher run away from him like this? – were dedicated to the whole becoming the best swordsman in the world thing... then it made an odd sort of sense.

Zoro didn't spend roughly six hours a day sculpting his body into the most perfect specimen of male beauty Johnny had ever had the fortune to look at because he was vain; he did it because strong, symmetrical muscles were necessary for his fighting art. He didn't fight murderers, bandits and madmen for glory, riches or because he was a sadist; he did it because he was planning to fight the very best and until then, everyone else was just training (well, that and he had to earn enough for dinner). And he wasn't actually half as rude and grumpy as he appeared on the first glance. Zoro simply didn't have time for the kind of person who was willing to give up when the going got a bit tough, because even if you _knew_ you were going to the top, it still cost all your energy to get there. Couldn't have quitters dragging you down, now could you?

If he was honest with himself, Johnny was a bit surprised that he could be bothered to keep them around... but on the other hand, neither Yosaku nor he had ever dreamt of trying to become the "best bounty-hunters in the world" or anything like that. They wanted to do the right thing while they could, get paid for it and live a long and eventful life together. Preferably ending with them retired to some remote village and where they could entertain the local kids with wildly exaggarated stories about their youth together.

Though they might have their ups and downs, especially about how to juggle the importance of money vs. doing the right thing vs. actually living to retirement, both Johnny and Yosaku were in firm agreement about this goal. And, somehow, Zoro sensed that, while their dreams weren't huge, they were damn sincere. Thus, with typical linear Zoro-logic, he respected them enough to talk to them like fellow humans and suddenly, they'd become friends.

This little observation was enough to make Yosaku go all teary-eyed when Johnny shared it, though he had managed to stop bawling enough to hand him a secret observation of his own: Zoro liked kids.

Seriously, he would always spar back if little brats attacked him with sticks. Especially if they didn't just snivel when he knocked them into the dust, but swore future vengeance, he'd look like someone had just given him the sun. So maybe he was a bit weird sometimes, but Johnny figured you probably had to trade in that phantastic physique for something. Further, he never made fun of their dreams. They didn't have to be big dreams, but they had to be _serious_, much like Johnny's unvoiced little grow-into-old-(perverted)-men-together fantasy.

Returning to their third revelation about the feared Pirate Hunter (all right, the fourth, because they also quickly discovered that when it came to things not related to fighting, swordfighting and dreams, he was kind of an idiot. Cool, but still an idiot, which was really saying something when that observation came from Yosaku) it one evening became startlingly clear to them both, that he had at least one majorly unresolved issue in his past.

Johnny would never have believed it unless he'd seen it himself. And he'd never seen it, if they hadn't all gotten drunk on some horrendous rotgut and hey'd never gotten drunk on the stuff if Zoro hadn't saved an old lady's house from being torched by a gang of measly 500 berie bandits by the simple method of getting lost, asking the about-to-torch-the-house bandits where he was and kicking their asses when they got rude. Which only proved that the world was one damned ungrateful place, if you asked him.

The noise of the fight attracted Johnny and Yosaku. Arriving just in time to realize that the losers had a bit of bounty attached to their sorry asses, they'd helped Zoro gather the bandits. Once they'd collected their piddling monetary reward, they retired to the old lady's empty barn to enjoy the barrel of booze she had graciously gifted them with.

"Holy crap!"

Johnny just wheezed in agreement with his partner, feeling his eyes tear and his tongue trying to peel out of his mouth and run off to safety.

Even Zoro had to cough a little, but then he snorted and downed the rest. Johnny and Yosaku boggled at this amazing show of masochism, machismo and massive lack of common sense.

"Damn, that's got a kick!" he gasped, and then he poured himself another glass.

Yosaku discreetely hid his glass behind some rusty tools, while Johnny "accidentally" dropped his in the straw.

"We've got some beer," he said, remembering the crate they'd picked up in town when they delivered the bandits. "I think I'll switch to that, for the sake of my poor overworked liver. Yosaku, Zoro?"

"Hit me, partner," Yosaku said.

Shaking his head, Zoro threw back another glass. "Nah, waste not, want not. Maybe you can pour some into your beer, if it's too strong for your sensitive little tummies?" he said, a much too pleased shit-eating grin on his face.

"Big bro, are you stupid or just crazy? You could use this stuff to clean off barnacles!"

"Nah," Yosaku disagreed, "it'd burn through the wood too."

"Booze is booze. Shouldn't be wasted." Zoro shrugged of their concerns and continued drinking the vile stuff.

Some hours passed, with talking, singing and more than a little bragging from certain parties.

Even if Zoro had previously proved himself to possess an iron stomach, and quite possibly a steel liver, Johnny felt it might be prudent to interrupt after a while. This impulse came about the time he realized that, while his own and Yosaku's stories had only grown (in volume as well as exaggarations), Zoro had stopped talking altogether a while ago. Though a bit beer-fuzzy by now, Johnny was still awake enough to remember, with a sudden pang of worry, how Zoro had been using his glass to more or less scoop up the stuff up. Using this method the madman had managed to drink almost half the hellbrew on his own; something they only realized when they had to physically drag him away from the barrel.

"Bro? Zoro? You still with us, man?"

Zoro blinked sluggishly. Yosaku brought their light closer, revealing that his pupils were unevenly dilated and his face an unhealthy shade of gray.

"Oh fuck. What the hell's _in_ this stuff?" Johnny asked, finding himself wishing that they'd been a bit more curious when Granny offered them her 'herbal akvavit'. Until now, Zoro had always gotten stuck on hilariously tipsy, no matter what amounts he drank. It was slightly (okay, extremely) worrying to see him so far gone.

There came something almost resembling words from Zoro before he, slowly and without actually changing his pose, tipped over sideways. Before either Johnny or Yosaku (who might after two beers each have reevaluated the idea of tipping a _leetle_ bit of rotgut into their own drinks) managed to react, he thumped to the straw-covered floor and lay there, arms still crossed and eyes open.

"Okay, bro, this isn't funny," Yosaku muttered and shook him.

"Kuuuui.."

"Come on, upsidaisy (Johnny, get water), that's it."

When Johnny came back with two leaking buckets of water, the scene that greeted him was one he would in many cases have paid actual money to see. Zoro was half-lying in Yosaku's lap, clinging to him, while his partner had wrapped his arms around the young swordsman.

Of course, in his fantasies, Yosaku didn't have puke on his trousers and if Zoro was moaning at all, it was because overwhelming pleasure and not because... well, not with an expression as if someone was putting his spine through a meat-grinder. Or possibly as if he'd just had his heart taken out, stomped on, and thrown to the dogs – either way, it bloody hurt to listen to him.

"Hey, partner?"

"Oh thank god," Yosaku muttered and reached for a bucket. "Here, take 'im, I need to get this off."

Mmm, drunk-puke-funk, lovely. No, this was most definitely not how Johnny had imagined getting Roronoa Zoro into his arms. But, friends they were. And friends didn't let friends lie around in their own filth, even if they were stupid enough to get ridiculously plastered on an old witch's hell-brew despite several warnings. Dragging him away from the smelly stuff, (the guy was heavy, probably because he consisted of nothing but muscle and steely determination) he coaxed a bit of water into Zoro and tried to get him to calm down.

It wasn't that he was getting violent or anything – thank God, that could've gone really hairy – but the way Zoro kept muttering, almost whining, with a look of absolute devastation on his face was disturbing, to say the least. Not to mention that he seemed to have lost control of his limbs completely, and hung like a big, heavy doll in Johnny's arms.

"C'me on, big bro, what's the matter? Huh, Zoro-bro? I'm here, it's okay, yeah?"

"Kuuuuina..."

"He keeps saying that," Yosaku said as he slunk in again, now trouserless. "Did he drink any water at all?"

Johnny shook his head; not much, no. He'd poured some water into Zoro's mouth, but most of it had poured straight back out.

"Shit."

"Who's Kuina, huh?" he tried, daring to stroke Zoro's back.

"Dead." The word was spoken thick and slurred, but it was unmistakably the word dead. Double shit.

"Dead an' in heaven." Zoro gestured at him helplessly, rambling on about something that Johnny could only barely make out.

There was something – someone? – he couldn't find, or had to do. It didn't make much sense, and the details were lost in Zoro's drunkenness. Whatever the problem was, it was definitely upsetting big bro, and they both tried to calm him down, promising that it would all work out, shh, take it easy.

"Can't _find_ 'im, Kuina, s'rry, so sorry..."

As his voice trailed off, Johnny dared to relax a bit too early, expecting the worst to be over. However, a moment later, Zoro began making familiar heaving noises again. Yosaku, bless him, was there with a bucket before Johnny's trousers were also sacrified on the altar of friendship.

When Zoro was finished, which took some time and holy shit the stuff stunk even more on the way up than on the way down, they tried to get some more water into him. Both of them were seriously worried about his clammy skin and general level of unresponsiveness by now, though they refused to admit it out loud (anyway, they were in the middle of nowhere, with only a crazy old bat who kept poison in a barrel to ask for help). After much coaxing and a final set of dry-heaves, Zoro finally managed to swallow some water, before he fell into heavy unconsciousness.

"He's still breathing steadily?" Yosaku asked, poking Zoro in the side and eliciting no reaction whatsoever.

"Seems so." Johnny shifted his grip, leaning against the wall and trying to move Zoro so that he would neither choke if he had to throw up again, nor hit Johnny in the face (because ew). Finally, he found a moderately comfortable position. Yosaku got rid of the bucket with ick, brought more water and their blankets. They nested themselves down the best they could. The planks behind them were hard and scratchy but not intolerable for one night, and this way they could keep Zoro half sitting, half lying in their grip.

Yosaku stroked their unconscious friend over his cheeks. Neither he nor Johnny found it prudent to talk about the tear-tracks on Zoro's face. While a true man's tears were nothing to be ashamed of, they were something you should only share among true comrades, who would understand you. And Zoro, they silently agreed, hadn't been in shape to know up from down, nevermind whether he wanted to cry for his dead Kuina around two moderately successful bounty hunters who liked to ogle him a bit too much for their own good.

"How old is he anyway?" Johnny asked, adjusting the blanket around Zoro's shoulder. It wasn't a question that had ever come up before. Zoro, regardless of physical age, was definitely the big brother of their little gang.

"Um, I think he said something like seventeen?"

Seventeen and already hunting destiny.

Johnny was nineteen and usually lorded the fact that he, through a lucky birthday, always had ten months of the year when he was a year older than Yosaku. But right now he felt almost painfully old, and very, very glad that Yosaku was a warm presence next to him.

"Hey, partner?" he asked.

"Mhm?"

"Don't," the words stuck in his throat, but he forced them out because – well, you never knew, did you? "Don't die. Until I can follow you to heaven."

"Course not, you idiot." Yosaku's kiss against his temple was chaste, but comforting, as was the hand that covered his own. "That goes for you too, bro," he said and bent down to give the unconscious Zoro a peck. "I'm sure your girl is patient up there."

Johnny closed his eyes and thought back to all the things he'd been slowly learning about the Pirate Hunter Roronoa Zoro (and himself) lately. It hadn't even been half a year since they'd been fools enough to challenge the Mountain Whale bandits and Zoro saved them from the (last) beating of their lives, had it?

"We're so screwed," he whispered, looking down at the sleeping swordsman. "Yosaku, partner, we're so incredibly screwed."

"Eh?"

He closed his eyes, imagining the time when Zoro would sail off forever. He'd leave nothing but rumors and memories behind, while he continued on his lonely path to the top. God, it hurt to think of... A day when Zoro would be so far away from ordinary people that the rumors grew into truth and only his battle-hungry, deadly smile remained. When there'd be nobody around to see him goof off and snort cheap bear up his nose, because he couldn't hold back his laughter. And yet, what could they do? Zoro _was_ his dream. Johnny couldn't imagine trying to stand in his way any more than he would consider cutting off Yosaku's head.

And now he was probably getting really maudling and horrible, because Yosaku was snuggling closer and doing that thing where his finger drew little circles on Johnny's hand while they pretended Johnny didn't notice.

Clearing his throat a few times, Johnny tried to convince himself that everything would work out.

"People like him," he said slowly, the words coming out without any input from his rational mind. "Do you ever really have a chance against them?"

"Oh." Yosaku's smile was a bit sad, but very fond. "Nah, prolly not. But would you change any of it?"

As long as Zoro woke up with nothing worse than a hell of a hangover tomorrow? "Dunno. No... No. How often do you get to see the birth of a legend, anyway?"

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[1] Zoro's horrid sense of direction wasn't quite a hidden facet. More of a heavily denied personality flaw you just had to learn to live with, and not make too many jokes about unless you wanted to meet the wrong end of his katana. Much like the snoring, honestly.

[2] Give him one hour and a decent clothing store, and Zoro would look so edible that they'd have to beat admirers off with a stick... Hmm, actually, now that Johnny considered it, Zoro looked just fine as he did.

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If you liked the story, or have a question or any critique, please leave feedback, thanks!

Oh, and if you've been waiting for it... Next part finally contains some serious guy/guy stuff ;)


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